Playing starters only when necessary is hardly a new trend. But every year, teams redefine “necessary.” At least one NFL coach—Mike Shanahan, tasked with bringing Robert Griffin III back safely in one piece—has advanced the notion that none of the exhibition games are necessary for a team’s most important player—and certainly not for the most important rehabbing player.

As for the Hall of Fame game in Canton, the Cowboys and Dolphins didn't parade many familiar faces in front of a national television audience hungry for the first game since early February.

Dolphins coach Joe Philbin committed to playing quarterback Ryan Tannehill in the first quarter, but for another pair of starters, receivers Mike Wallace and Brian Hartline, no action.

Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who underwent surgery on his back in May, made a case for playing as recently as Wednesday, but by Friday he had backpedaled, and later that day the Dallas Morning News reported that “a large number of starters” were told by coaches they would be held out and not take the field until next Friday against Oakland.

“Whatever the coaches think,” Romo told reporters. “We have five (exhibition) games. I think the coaches are going to be smart.”

Shanahan and the Washington Redskins will be even smarter when it comes to Griffin, who also made it clear that he was being kept out of exhibition games against his will while recovering from January knee surgery.

Still, Griffin said on the day he reported to camp, “I don’t think preseason actually matters that much when it comes to that. I think if you talk to a lot of the vets, they don’t even like the preseason. I think that’s a well-known fact; even I know that and I’ve only been in the league one year.”

In recent years, in fact, the routine of playing starters in the first few exhibition games—before the acknowledged dry run of the next-to-last game, when they play into the second half—has been reduced from a handful of series in the first two, to a handful of plays in the first two, to nothing at all in the first game in many cases.

The emphasis has shifted to how teams work in the offseason (even with the limits in the new collective bargaining agreement) and in training camp, including more intrasquad scrimmages and joint practices. At the very least, much more weight is given to that on-field work than on the four (or five) exhibition games.

Shanahan lands firmly in that camp, and not just in Griffin’s case.

“I think so many times that the repetition in preseason is so overexaggerated,” he said as camp opened. “I coached college for 10 years, and we never had a preseason game. You go into the game ready to play, and a lot of times when you practice, and you practice at game speed, you can go into a game without exhibition games.

“One of the reasons you have exhibition games is to evaluate your talent. But if a player does have some experience, and you are able to put that person through a good practice or practices where you get them ready to play, I think they’re more than ready to play.”

All but two teams have at least an extra four days to decide how to manage starters’ playing time; 12 teams open their preseason Thursday, and the Bills and Colts get to wait until next Sunday. However, the Packers, Jets, Saints, Browns and Titans put on full-scale scrimmages over the weekend, and this week the Patriots travel to Philadelphia for two days of joint practices with the Eagles before they meet Friday in their preseason opener.

Bill Belichick hit the road last preseason as well, for joint practices in Tampa with the Buccaneers. In the first two exhibition games, though, he sat a huge portion of his roster—Tom Brady played two series in the opener and didn’t dress for the second game.

Brady and most of the seated starters have serious mileage on them—Brady turned 36 last week—and Romo and Griffin, of course, have health to protect. Exposing them to game contact by players who are trying to make the team is seen as foolhardy.

For others who have gotten hurt (49ers linebacker Patrick Willis, who broke a bone in his hand last week) or tweaked (Giants wide receiver Hakeem Nicks has tightness in his groin), testing them in practice is far preferable to risking them in a game that doesn’t count.

That’s how teams treat exhibition games now—as a necessary evil, and less necessary every year.